And as I opened them up, one by one, I was, like, HUH? Why is she taking a picture of the ARC of the upcoming Sammy Keyes in the midst of crackers and cookies? Wow, those are cool sunglasses, but...why? And the book at the feet of suit of arms? Hello?

It was like my son was in kindergarten again and we were going around to odd places taking pictures of Flat Stanley. (Please tell me you had the Flat Stanley Experience as a child / parent.) But I had no idea why Sammy was in front of a fancy light. Or a stony sculpture. And I was feeling secretly dopey. Like, am I supposed to know what she's talking about?

And then, ZAP -- I got it.

It was the map. The corner of a map visible in the bottom of a picture.

I had studied that map when writing the book.

I'd studied it a LOT!

Stupidly excited, I wrote her back with the answer to where our girl was. Turned out Nancy had an elaborate series of pictures still in the queue--pictures that made it more and more obvious where Sammy was--and she was bummed that I'd figured it out so fast.

So right now you're going, Wendelin, hello? Sin City? How could you not have known? It's in the title, right?

I was in Flat Stanley mode, okay?

The first thing I thought was to share this with you. Especially since I've decided NOT to do a contest for ARCs of the book because I don't want some of you to know the identity of Sammy's dad before others do. No matter how fair the contest is, it just doesn't seem fair.

But I thought it would be fun to make a collage of the pictures she'd sent and post it for the super sleuths among you. (It was only after I was done with my little collage masterpiece that I discovered another batch of photo e-mails from her. I could share them later if you want, but I wasn't going to start over! For now, here's the first wave for fun (and to torture you a little :) ) ).

In the upcoming book, Sammy goes all these places. Can you identify any of them?

22 comments:

I have to figure this out! It is going to be in my head all week. And I really like the idea that you aren't doing an arc contest. That is really cool! Are you still doing a contest when the book gets published?

Yay! Some sleuthing helped me figure out the first picture. At first I was thinking it was public transit or possibly the airport, but then I looked closer at the map and thought, "That looks like a mall map." Bingo. Miracle Mile Shops. (Same logo in the last picture, of course. Not sure if the sunglasses pic and/or cookie/cracker aisle pic are within that shopping center.)

I'll leave it to others to figure out the rest; I'm guessing some of them might be in the various famous casinos.

On the one hand, I'm glad everyone gets the same chance to find out when the book comes out. On the other hand, I have absolutely no budget for new books for myself right now, so I've added it to my Christmas list, and/or I'll hope that the library continues to order your new books (as I encourage it to do), and that it doesn't take too long for it to come in. Otherwise, I might have to avoid your blog in January so I don't get accidentally spoiled.

When you said there wasn't gonna be a contest,yo be honest I was bummed. But I completely understand why,it makes a lot of sense that you don't want people to know who's Sammy's day is. And that map thing im gonna have trouble figuring out,because to be honest I suck at these kinds of things,but I'm determined to figure it out!!!! And on an unrelated topic today's my Birthday!!!! :D even though I'm still going to school.

Happy Birthday!=)oh and I'm pretty sure it's 49 more days till Sin City, 'cause after Nov. is over it's one month (about 30 days or so) and then a week or two in Jan., so 49 days is kinda longer then it looks I guess.=)

Okay, who's going to figure out the middle row of pictures? I wonder if one of them is the real Caesar's Palace -- I bet it's much nicer than the one in Santa Martina! I'd name other casinos, but I don't know any... I do know there's one with an Egyptian theme, and that might be the one Siegfried and Roy perform at? I notice there are no pictures of wedding chapels, though Wendelin did say there were more pictures.

Happy birthday :) And I don’t have time right now to actually try figuring anything out really, I wish I did but I really should finish up my homework, but I just wanted to say I am extremely excited for this book and FLAT STANLEY of course I had a Flat Stanley experience!! I read those books like crazy when I was in like, 3rd grade I think or somewhere around then. Yeah I took Flat Stanley home of course I did. I’ll try to figure the places out later but for now just wanted to say AWESOME this is so exciting just a little bit more to wait <3

When you are my age, January comes slow yet fast. And trust me, it is hard to wait so much. Still,,, my teacher gave me the reading goal of a 100 points like I did last time, yet only another kid and me past 100 in our last trimester,, so I am so reading Sin City to get the points and be full of suspense. :) :D <:DB)

What does that M stand for? I'm trying so hard to figure it out. I have to read Great Expectations and believe me i'd much rather read Sin City. I really have no idea what Great Expectations is about and i'm like 70 pages in...

I tried to figure out the middle row of pictures, but I had no luck. For anyone else who tries, you probably want to make sure that you filter your search (do a 'safe search') before searching through images of Vegas. Just a friendly warning, especially for the minors.

I went to the creative writing group at the library again, and this time I brought the prologue to the novel I'm working on. The group is not very critical, more supportive, but they were able to correctly guess the age of the main character, and they laughed at the parts that were supposed to be funny. I realized as I proofread it for the fifth time before printing it that I had maples sprouting leaves and tomatoes growing in a garden... so I swapped the tomatoes out for strawberries. And reading it aloud helped me figure out which parts could read smoother. I'd like to find a group that meets more often closer to home and offers more constructive feedback, but this was still helpful.

http://www.miraclemileshopslv.com/pdf/MMS_Directory.pdf AHA the first picture... I looked through every sunglass shop in that whole mall and couldnt find any glasses like that one. I really need to go to bed.